I originally had planned Starsight to be something that had "Fort" in the title, or "Fortress" in the title. "Star Fortress," or something like that. And the publisher came back and said, "That sounds too fantasy-ish. And it's science fiction." And they just didn't like the sound and feel, and so I came back with Starsight, and they liked that, and I liked that, so we just went with it.
Right now I'm writing Skyward 3, which I'm calling "Nowhere." Which I know the publisher is not terribly fond of, and I'm only so-so on it, so it might change before we go to press; we'll have to see.
Is there an update to the combined volume of White Sand?
This has been a hectic year. We've had a lot of things going on. I've had to prioritize things like the Kickstarter and the manufacturing of all of the goodies for that. In addition, I've had Rhythm of War and all of the art and art direction that comes along with that. It's just been a really big year. As things are tying up (as far as my involvement on the manufacturing side of things, we're getting close to having everything approved and in process there), I will be able to spend more time on the omnibus.
In the background, though, I have kept the letterers working and the artist working as much as I could, and I think all of the minor fixes... a lot of people know, there were electric lamps. And I hired my brother (who is also an artist), and he, in the latter half of those, erased a lot of those. There was a modern IV in one scene that we needed to erase. But I think that changes to the art, small things like that, are pretty much almost done.
There are a few other things that need some attention, and I'll be able to turn my brain to that here soon.
You're adding some pages and things, right?
Yeah, there will be 38 more pages and a prologue to introduce characters a little bit more. Those are almost completely done. The writing on those is done.
There are some pages that are more world-building that are written by Khriss, and I have to find out where we have room for those so I know how many of those that we have, and then write out some of the worldbuilding. And that's what I'm in the process of doing right now. Getting really close to being done with that.
So that's where we're at on that. And as soon as that's done, we will discuss that with Brandon's agent and with the publisher and figure out where to go from there.
What is your favorite part about worldbuilding?
Probably the magic system. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
That, or finding connections between different stories I'm working on. I really enjoy when I can make the worldbuilding for one book be foreshadowing for the worldbuilding of another book, and things like that. And where I can sneak in combinations between things in the cosmere, and stuff like that. That's really satisfying for me. I don't know why, but it's one thing that really excites me.
Where did the idea of pooping in Shardplate come from?
Because I wondered how it happened with knights on the battlefield and thought, "This is the sort of thing that just doesn't show up very often in fantasy books."
Or in history books, probably.
It's there in history books. The historians are very interested in this sort of thing.
One of the ways that I wanted to ground some of the conversations in Stormlight was to talk about some of these things. And it turns out that Shallan and Adolin's conversations tend to be very good places to talk about this sort of thing.
There are certain things that I do in Stormlight Four that I will not give as spoilers, but they're gonna make the writing of Stormlight Five particularly difficult.
Poor Karen. That's all gonna be stuff for Karen and me. It's gonna be headaches for us. Not as much for you [Isaac].
